ANTAKYA, Turkey/JANDARIS, Syria, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Exhausted rescuers pulled dwindling numbers of survivors from earthquake rubble in Turkey and Syria on Saturday five days after one of the region's worst natural disasters whose death toll neared 26,000 and looked set to rise far higher.

Some rescue operations were halted after reports of looting.

Facing questions over his handling of Turkey's most devastating earthquake since 1939, President Tayyip Erdogan promised to start rebuilding within weeks after he said hundreds of thousands of buildings were wrecked.

In Syria, the disaster hit hardest in the rebel-held northwest, leaving many homeless for a second time after already being displaced by the ongoing civil war.

In the southern Turkish city of Antakya, body bags lay on streets and residents wore masks against the smell of death as they joined rescuers who had still to reach some buildings.

"There is chaos, rubble and bodies everywhere," said one, whose group had worked overnight trying to reach a university teacher calling to them from the rubble.

By morning, she had stopped responding.

In Kahramanmaras, close to the epicentre in Turkey, there were fewer visible rescue operations amid the smashed concrete mounds of fallen houses and apartment blocks.

But at one building, rescuers burrowed between concrete slabs to reach a five year-old girl still alive, lifting her on a stretcher, wrapped in foil, and chanting "God is Greatest".

Only several others were brought out alive on Saturday.

Two German rescue organisations suspended work, citing reports of clashes between groups of people and gunfire.

An Austrian team also briefly suspended work.

'LOOTERS WITH KNIVES'

Gizem, a rescue worker from the southeastern province of Sanliurfa, said she had seen looters in Antakya. "We cannot intervene much as most of the looters carry knives," she said.

Police and soldiers were out in force on Saturday to keep order, also helping with traffic, rescues and food handouts.

Turkey said about 80,000 people were in hospital, with more than 1 million in temporary shelters.

Outside Antakya, workers at a mass grave lowered bodybags into a freshly dug trench where a mechanical digger covered them with earth. About 80 bags awaited burial.

New graves also covered a hillside outside Gaziantep, some marked with flowers or small Turkish flags flapping in the breeze. A woman broke down in sobs next to one of the graves as a boy tried to comfort her.